


The Past Up In Smoke

by beacandy



Series: Bea's Stanuary 2020 [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Campfires, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Light Angst, Post-Weirdmageddon, Stanuary, Stanuary 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beacandy/pseuds/beacandy
Summary: It's the last night before Dipper and Mabel reach the end of their summer and go home, and the Pines family are going to celebrate with a summertime classic that's been all but absent for the whole trip.Stanuary Week 1: Burn(I'm late for Week 1, I know, I know! I was trying to make this simple and it spiraled a bit, but I'm happy with what I came up with!)
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Mabel Pines & Stan Pines
Series: Bea's Stanuary 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596163
Comments: 8
Kudos: 92
Collections: Stanuary





	The Past Up In Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> FHV XSMMP ECKC MWRQ ATE ALGP SZD ZLZ TUCE  
> OJV FHV SZTED HSNW NUIALP DZHB ZWQP ZF ATE OTFP  
> SZD ZF ATAE QSNLULV KVUL L QOIAXY XJLI;  
> WSTZA YDAMAAK FPWZ, W HTOVFPJ FWPK

"I can't believe we've been living in the woods all summer but we haven't actually done one of these!" Mabel's voice rang out through the clearing as they made their way to the fire pit. She paused, watching the ground and picking up thin sticks that were suited for roasting purposes. "Well," she said, after a moment of thought, "I did with Candy and Grenda during that revenge roadtrip, but none of the rest of you joined in so that doesn't count."

"'Living in the woods.'" Stan scoffed, shaking his head. He had in his hands a closed cardboard box. "You make it sound like you've been out in the wild," he said.

Dipper, who was neither gathering nor carrying, came up to Stan's side and elbowed him in the leg. "I mean, no videogame consoles?" he asked, sardonically. "Pffft. We're practically uncivilized. Might as well be celebrating a summer-long Pioneer day."

Stan shuddered at even the mention of the event. "You know," he said, in his best crotchety-old-man voice, "back in my day I would've been thrilled to have as much technology around as you kids get."

Mabel rolled her eyes at that. "You're super old and also your childhood was sort of garbage!" she said in a single breath.

"That's fair," Ford chimed in, carrying two oversized bags full of scrolls and tapestries. Oh right. The real purpose of this fire.

Stan turned to the kids. "Anyway, I couldn't exactly pretend not to know about weird stuff if some gnomes and werewolves or whatever came up to us out in the woods. And then when you found out was also when I got the other two journals, so my evenings were pretty much shot until I got Poindexter back."

"What about after that?" Dipper asked.

Stan chuckled, ruffling Dipper's hair. "In case you don't remember, you weren't exactly tripping over yourself to hang out with me after this guy showed up," he said, pointing at Ford with his thumb.

"Oh," Dipper said simply, looking at the ground. "Right."

Whoops. Stan wracked his brain for a way to stop that reaction. "Hey, it's fine," he said. "New things are exciting. I remember being eight."

Much to Stan's relief, Dipper rose to the bait. "Thirteen," he said, rolling his eyes. "Literally _just_ had our thirteenth birthday party."

"Really?" Stan asked with mock disbelief, evil grin spreading across his face. "Yeesh. You ought to be way taller by now, kid."

And then Dipper climbed onto his back to try to get him in a chokehold. They both laughed as Stan retaliated, noogying Dipper through his cap as he struggled to get away.

"Now that you're a teen I'm officially not holding back!" Stan shouted.

"You were holding back?!" Dipper asked incredulously in between laughs as he struggled to get away by any means possible, kicking and punching at Stan ineffectually.

As if the boy he had in his arms was nothing but a fly swarming him, Stan casually glanced back at Ford and Mabel, who had fallen behind in an effort to be left out of the carnage. Much to Stan's surprise, the two were engaged in conversation. They seemed to be looking at a piece of paper Mabel had been drawing on. Ford grinned encouragingly and nodded, causing Mabel to beam.

Huh. Guess they managed to work _their_ issues out. Good for them. Potentially hazardous to everybody else, but still.

"I got the food!" a voice said from behind a bush. Soos emerged. "S'more supplies, hotdogs, nachos, popcorn..."

"Are those homemade graham crackers?" Mabel asked with wide eyes.

Soos nodded, taking one out and handing it to Mabel, who took a bite and, smiling, broke it in half to hand the other piece to Dipper, still on Stan's shoulder but having abandoned his fight in favor of riding on him piggyback.

Soos took a cracker himself and munched on it. "I think being a chair for Weirdmageddon made Abuelita restless," he said, with cracker in his mouth. "She's been baking, like, non-stop."

"She's my hero," Mabel said, stars practically forming in her eyes.

"Now all we're waiting on is the wood," Dipper said as they made it to the firepit, finally getting off of Stan and onto the ground to check that everything was ready for their fire.

Right on cue, Wendy appeared with an oversized wheelbarrow full of lumber. She had broken a sweat and had blisters, but looked pretty relaxed overall.

"Hey guys," Wendy said, dumping the wood and sorting it into size-based piles. "Not sure how long I'll get to stay. Dad's pretty clingy after everything that happened."

Stan rolled his eyes. "If anything he should know that you can handle yourself."

She snorted. "Oh, he does," She said, simply. "I think he wants somebody looking after himself."

"That makes more sense," Stan said, nodding in approval.

"So," she asked, taking a seat, "are we gonna let Ford start the fire with his multidimensional survival skills, or do this the usual way?"

Stan held up the sloshing lighter fluid container and a box full of matches in answer.

"Really, Stanley?" Ford asked, utterly unimpressed.

Stan let out a laborious sigh. "Fiiiiine," he said, putting the supplies back into the box. "You can start the fire your way and I'll save this stuff for the main event."

"Fair enough," Ford said, pulling out his knife and finding a good stick.

Dipper watched intently, taking notes, as Ford set up the kindling and made a hand drill to use to start the fire. Stan considered pointing out that the boy had just been complaining about a lack of technology, but decided to let them have their fun. He hung back, sitting on one of the benches with Mabel, who was still looking at that same piece of paper.

"Whatcha got there, Pumpkin?" he asked.

Immediately, her eyes went wide and she hid the paper away. He thought he caught a glimpse of a knitting template for a sweater. "It's nothing!" she said, wholly unconvincingly.

At Stan's dubious look she smiled sweetly. "It'll be done by tomorrow, you'll just have to wait until then."

Stan shrugged. "Whatever," he said in forced grumpy nonchalance, "just hope you don't expect me to wear some crummy knitting project."

Her smile instantly vanished. "Yeah, I bet you'll hate it. Maybe I'd be better off giving it to someone who would appreciate it like Grunkle Ford."

...What?! "No, no, no! Now hold on a-!" He stopped when he realized that his panic had caused her frown to immediately transform into a wicked grin. "You're a little monster," he said, wholeheartedly impressed.

They were interrupted when Dipper and Soos started cheering as the fire started in earnest. They all settled onto the benches as the fire began to gain a respectable size. Stan hated to admit it, but Ford knew how to make a good fire.

They watched it, peacefully, until the smoke started to rise, coming straight for Mabel, who started to cough and got up, ducking behind a log.

Stan smiled in (somewhat) genuine sympathy. "Sorry, Sweetheart. They say smoke follows beauty, y'know," Stan said. Mabel grinned at that, only to start coughing again as the smoke went into her mouth.

"'They' don't know what they're talking about," Ford, predictably, said, side-eying Stan before turning to Mabel. "Smoke merely blows in the direction of the wind and is utterly uninterested in the physical appearance of who it hits."

"You sure about that?" Stan asked, watching as Mabel moved from place to place, pursued by the smoke no matter where she was.

Ford raised an eyebrow, perplexed. "Then again," he conceded, "I suppose this smoke _could_ be some sort of sentient variety."

"Smoke follows beauty, huh?" she said, fingers to her chin and tongue sticking out in intense thought. "Maybe if I sit next to Grunkle Ford it'll cancel me out and get the smoke to leave me alone."

Stan burst into guffaws as Mabel moved next to Ford, who had gone speechless. His laughs only intensified as the smoke, indeed, finally let her be and started to billow up into the sky.

"Stanley and I look exactly the same, you know," Ford said, glaring at the fire as if he honestly believed it was sentient. When Mabel leaned against him affectionately, though, his irritation quickly dissipated. "Although I suppose I can't complain if you get me results like this," he said to it, putting an arm around Mabel's shoulder and squeezing softly. Mabel grinned ecstatically.

"Let's wait until we get some coals, then we can get started on the food," Stan said. Everyone nodded in assent.

"We should sing campfire songs!" Mabel said.

Dipper and Stan, who had at some point ended up sitting next to each other, booed in unison.

"The day I let anyone, even you, sing Kumbaya anywhere near me is the day I've lost my self-respect," Stan said.

"Stories then?" Mabel asked.

"Eh. I can tolerate that," Stan said.

Dipper grinned. "I know my scary story repertoire is _much_ better than it was last time I had to come up with one. Let's see, the lake monster? The candy creature? The clones that may or may not still be out there?"

"No Gravity-Falls-Weirdness stories," Stan said sternly.

"Aw, _what_?" Dipper whined, crossing his arms and glaring.

Stan shook his head. "The point of campfire stories is to bring in your own unique energy."

"You mean to make something up," Wendy said, flatly.

Stan shook his head. "You can tell a real story and still be creative," he said, grinning toothily and pulling an eyepatch out of his pocket. "For example," he said, sticking it over his eye, "this story is completely true. So I was on the road, in... I dunno, Florida? That sounds right. And I came across..."

What followed was a story that could not have _possibly_ been true, at least not in its entirety. Nevertheless, it pulled everyone in as he described his encounter with La Llorona. Nobody could bring themselves to interject, even when he described his smooth flirtation with the specter, or when the story became an action-hero type story where he started beating up hordes of fish-people for some reason. By the time it was over, everyone was invested.

"Okay, I've got a true story too," Wendy said, face completely serious.

Wendy started her own story about the time that one of Nate's cousins stayed in a haunted house overnight and was almost a vampire's midnight snack. Dipper sprung off of it to tell a story about a creepy doll his mother had bought, not even pretending that it was true. All-in-all, it was pretty solid, although he didn't really have the energy to sell the ending that was clearly meant to be chilling. Soos, though, looked shell-shocked, and barely managed enough composure to tell his own somewhat bizarre story of the time that his maternal great-grandfather, one of a long line of repairmen, was called to repair a house which he slowly realized was alive. Ford told an exciting story of his travels through a dimension called 'The Purple Desert' where he had come across a four-headed scorpion, though everyone agreed that as a multidimensional traveler he sort of had an unfair advantage. Mabel rounded it off with a clearly completely fabricated story of a group of friends who discovered a swampman _and_ the meaning of friendship at summer camp. It was incredibly sappy, and Stan was _definitely_ not moved to tears by the end.

By the time the stories had started to wane, the fire (which Wendy and Stan had been feeding logs regularly) was ready for food.

It was impressive that, even after they had been stuffed with food at their birthday party, Dipper and Mabel still had room for campfire food, but they _were_ officially teenagers now, so that didn't seem too unusual.

For a while, the energy was playful, but they all seemed unable to forget what was coming next.

"You ready?" Dipper asked, squeezing Ford's hand.

"Very much so," Ford said.

And with that, he put in a large curtain depicting Bill. It immediately started smoking, but, no matter how Soos tried, it didn't seem willing to catch.

Every second it stayed in the fire without being destroyed, Ford became more and more impatient, tapping his fingers against the bench. "Stanley," he said with forced chipperness, "I believe you said something about lighter fluid?"

Stan grinned. "I thought you'd never ask, Poindexter." He pulled out the can and made quick work of the tapestry, which engulfed in flames with the help of the lighting agent while everyone hooted and hollered with spiteful glee.

Ford, after a moment of expressionlessly watching it go up, reached into the bag for another artifact, a scroll, and tossed it in. This one was gone in a moment. Once it was completely gone, finally, the spell seemed to break. He smiled. He tossed in another scroll and started laughing, a tinge of hysteria but still a sweet sound. He gestured to the bag, encouraging everyone else to grab pieces and throw them in. Stan stood by with the can in hand to deal with anything that wasn't immediately gone while the kids took control, throwing things in while cackling.

Soon after, the stories started up again, though they started to resemble Mabel and Stan's stories more and more as they went on, filled with happy endings and triumph rather than any really intense horror elements.

During one of Wendy's stories, she started to trail off as she realized that Dipper and Mabel had nodded off.

"And that's my cue," she said, "Later, old guys. Seeya tomorrow?"

Stan frowned. "I may not be your boss anymore, kid, but you better still show me respect."

"Aw, Mr. Pines... I have literally never respected you." Ford snorted at that as Wendy headed off with an offhand salute.

Stan sighed, shaking his head, before turning to Soos. "You probably ought to call it a night too, Mr. Mystery."

Soos looked a little confused before he finally registered that Stan was talking about him. "Oh. Oh wow," he said, beginning to tear up.

"Ya see?" Stan said, "Mr. Mystery is _way_ too cool to cry like that, you must be totally sleep-deprived."

"Totally," Soos said, grinning even as the tears finally fell. He picked up Dipper and Mabel in his arms. "I'll get these two to bed," he said, heading to the Shack.

And then there were two. They watched the fire flicker steadily. Ford looked more relaxed than he had since... probably since they were teenagers. Stan looked at what was in the box now that the fire-making supplies had been placed on the ground. He picked it up and moved to the other half of the log Ford was sitting on.

He looked relaxed enough that Stan felt totally ready to butt in. "Hey," he said, getting Ford's attention, "I know this is sort of _your_ cathartic-destruction-of-past-issues bonfire, but you mind if I get some in too?"

"By all means," Ford said.

"Sweet." With that, Stan glanced into the cardboard box.

The box had been in his room for a long time now, undisturbed for at least a decade until the kids started snooping. Given its composition, a newspaper announcing the death of Stan Pines and a bunch of fake IDs, he couldn't blame them for the conclusion they had drawn. Maybe keeping them all together like that was sort of a weird move.

The ID cards, though, he had had a good reason to keep. Especially when Ford told him that the shack wasn't his anymore when summer was over, he'd felt prudent for leaving his options open. Never know when he'd have to fall back on one of his abandoned identities.

Now, though, with a future involving the sea, they were nothing but dead weight.

He threw the box into the fire, not one-piece-at-a-time like Ford. All of it at once, squirting on some more lighter fluid for good measure.

As the newspaper shriveled up in a matter of seconds, he felt something shrivel up inside himself, too. He took a moment to decide how he felt.

Unexpectedly, it was nothing but joy. He grinned. "Aw yeah! Stanley Pines is back from the dead, suckers! Goodbye Steve Pinington! Bye, Hal Forrester. From now on it's just me and I'm never doing any of _that_ nonsense again!"

Ford watched his display with mild amusement. "Am I to understand this is you leaving your life of crime behind?"

Stan shrugged. "Well, I may keep on shoplifting the occasional tangerine. Can't let the sticky fingers get _too_ out of practice." He softened. "Mostly it's just... I did it, y'know? I've got my family back and better than ever. No need to go around trying to get money by any means possible."

Ford's smile slipped from his face at that, replaced by neutral contemplation. He averted his eyes.

Stan continued, smiling enough for both of them. "Plus, I got you back from the portal, so I don't even need to go by Stanford anymore. I'm Stanley. Huh. That's gonna take some getting used to."

At that, Ford managed to regain his composure, smirking. "Well you'd better get used to it," he said, matter of fact. "All is forgiven for the whole 'stealing my identity' thing, but I don't want the name 'Stanford Pines' to be followed by 'local shyster' ever again."

"Neither do I!" Stan exclaimed, mock-annoyance in his voice. "I mean, I do all the hard work, you get all the credit? Is this what it was like for you during high school?"

"Something like that," Ford said with good humor and none of the bitterness Stan was afraid the quip would stir up.

They both chuckled, falling into a companionable silence, though it turned a little strained as Stan noticed something.

"You okay?" Stan asked.

"What do you mean?" Ford asked back, looking genuinely confused.

Stan wondered if it was just his imagination, but he continued on anyway. "You're just sorta keeping your distance from the fire. When we used to sneak to those teenage bonfires on the beach you'd get right next to it. You were actually kinda manic about it. Sorta freaked me out." At Ford's blank expression, Stan grew anxious.

Once or twice, during the memory-recovery process, he had mistaken the plot of a Ducktective episode for something that had really happened. He was pretty sure that wasn't the case here, since he could specifically recall Ford's face, but maybe he'd made a mistake. "Unless," he said, furrowing his eyebrows, "That didn't actually-"

"-No, you're right!" Ford interrupted quickly, seemingly realizing what Stan's worry was. He calmed down when Stan looked reassured. "I remember when I learned about the chemical reactions fire involved. I was enamored." He watched the fire nostalgically before chuckling. "And then there was the time I managed to get us second degree burns on our legs," he said.

Stan wondered why Ford was looking at him pointedly, rather than continuing with his story, before he recognized the look. Ah. He was being quizzed. He wracked his brain for the incident Ford was talking about. "Didn't you steal all of Ma's makeup and try to set it on fire to figure out which ones were flammable?"

He got a bit of a headache for his efforts, but Ford's wide smile was worth it.

"By my account," Ford said, elbowing him in the ribs, " _you_ were the one who set it on fire while I took notes. Don't act like I was the pyromaniac mad scientist and you were an innocent bystander."

Stan thought about denying it, but deliberately misrepresenting the past, even for a joke, seemed like a misstep, so he just nodded. "That's right. I used that old lighter I found on the beach. It was going great until we got to the nail polish remover." He could still remember how the highly flammable transparent liquid had burst into flames, a contrast to the difficulty in igniting any other substances. He chuckled. "You were sure you had discovered a new explosive, and I started making plans for how to get Crampelter with it. We were so busy with that we didn't realize our pants were burning for at least five minutes."

They both laughed uproariously at the memory. And if Ford's laugh held a bit too much elation for a childhood mishap, was clearly filled with relief that Stan had not lost that memory, well. No need to get on his case for it.

Again, when the laughter died down, a comfortable silence came over them.

This time, Ford was the one to break it. "It makes me a little nervous," he said, eying the fire pointedly and sounding sheepish. "I know it's irrational. But especially after throwing all that You-Know-Who stuff in, I'm half-expecting it to turn blue and magical."

It took Stan a moment to realize that Ford was addressing his earlier question, the one they had forgotten in favor of reminiscing. He wasn't sure what to say to that. Should he agree that it was irrational? Make a joke? Say he understood? Offer to douse it now that it had done its job?

Apparently he was taking too long to decide, as Ford kept going. "I'm a little surprised it doesn't make _you_ nervous. Between your shoulder and your account of how you experienced the memory erasure, you would be completely justified in having some distaste for the whole thing."

...Huh. The thought hadn't even occurred to him, but, with all that lined up, it seemed reasonable.

"Yeah, well," Stan said, "the day the portal located you, the kids found some old illegal fireworks in the house and we set them off from the roof. It was awesome."

"Yeah?" Ford asked, small smile on his face.

Stan nodded, continuing, "Plus, cigars, cooking, that one time we burned one of Gideon's crummy wigs in the fireplace... I dunno. Fire's been good to me enough times to make up for the times it wasn't."

Something about that sentiment made Ford nod in understanding.

Stan, emboldened, decided to push his luck. "Besides, even if my memories were being wiped out at the time, I got to watch ol' Corn Chip freaking out and burning up too, so that wasn't all bad. No upsides to the shoulder thing, but, eh."

Whoops. Now he'd done it. There Ford went, looking miserable. "Stanley, I'm..."

Nope. Can't have that. Not tonight. "Stanford, c'mon," Stan said beseechingly. "Haven't we had that conversation enough times this week? Not that I don't love attention, but I can only take so many apologies before I get bored with 'em."

Ford stopped obediently,"If you say so-" he started, softly.

"-I do say so," Stan interrupted. "Now quit moping already! Now that the kids - and Soos - are asleep, we get to start the _really_ fun stories. Like, speaking of fire, there was this guy, Jimmy Snakes, I was rolling with for a while. And I wasn't sure at the time but in retrospect I'm almost positive he was some sort of fire elemental."

There was still an element of uncertainty in Ford's expression, but it was quickly fading in favor of fascination. "You're kidding," he said, eyes wide with anticipation.

Aw yeah. Stan still had it. "No! So it all started when I was in North Carolina, hustling outside a bar. Little did I know that bar was the preferred hangout of the Flaming Serpents, and their leader was Jimmy. So he didn't think it was so funny when I told him..."

As their decidedly-family-unfriendly tales rung out in the forest and the sky started to change to a brighter color in anticipation of dawn, the fire died down to its embers, its job complete.

**Author's Note:**

> The key is a classic treat around campfires, but Stan is especially fond of them. In fact, at the beginning of the summer, I swear I saw him stacking a whole plate with them at a party like some kind of animal.


End file.
